Which Franchises IP decline has crushed you the most?

[The Yosemite Bear]

it's truely sad to watch some of your old friends just waste away becomming nothing more, worse seeing their franchises being turned into something that is just unlike the predacessors, just making sequels that make you wince.

my vote goes out to Microprose's former IPs./

[MKSheppard]

Tossup between Microporose and Sierra.

[The Yosemite Bear]

with possible room for Lucasarts following Tie Fighter/Secret Weapons

[Xisiqomelir]

[Ariphaos]

Master of Magic...

Microprose :-/

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

with possible room for Lucasarts following Tie Fighter/Secret Weapons

If there is a reason why I would like to see Lucasarts crash and burn, it would be the destruction of many of its old franchises, like Monkey Island, X-wing, Jedi Knight etc. The old games are NO MORE.

Now, nothing but stuff for consoles, which hardly match the caliber of the old games, excepting maybe Force Unleashed or whatever it is called.

[Nephtys]

FASA. Watch in awe as simultaneously, the Battletech, Crimson Skies and Shadowrun themes are run into the dirt.

[Vaporous]

Sega and Lucas Arts.
Shadow the Hedgehog and no sequel to TIE Fighter.

why

[Connor MacLeod]

Sierra and Origin. Those two represent a cornerstone of my childhood/teenage gaming years. I especially despied the loss of Ultima, which was for a long long long time one of my most favorite game series and Richard Garriot has always been a favorite game designer of mine. Next to Ultima, Wing Commander was the OTHER Origin Game I long grew up with.

I'm very much dismayed that Lucasarts seems to have dumped a good many of their good games (monkey Island) in favor of the current crap they spew out.

[Eleas]

I'm very much dismayed that Lucasarts seems to have dumped a good many of their good games (monkey Island) in favor of the current crap they spew out.

To be fair, they didn't dump MI before pissing all over it with Return to Monkey Island. God, that was an atrocity.

[salm]

Yeah, Origin. I really miss the Ultimas. Wing Commander and Strike Commander were also among my favorites.

[Thanas]

Well, let's start:

Microprose - Master of Orion 2 - then nothing
Origin - No more Wing Commander
Digital Anvil - No more Freelancer either
Black Isle - Where have all the RPGs gone?
Lucas Arts - because of all the reasons already listed.

[Covenant]

Sadly, there was a MoO3. Though, like several other abominations, there should not have been. At least it didn't spiral down the crapper the way X-Com did.

[Uraniun235]

I miss the days when a Star Trek game could be good.

[Joviwan]

Black Isle - Where have all the RPGs gone?

Black Isle hideously disolved. It's since been semi-recooperated in the form of Obsidian, complete with black isle to troika to obsidian refugees.

Their name isn't quite as good in the industry as it should be, anymore, after clusterfucks like Knights of the Old Republic 2 and NWN2. Granted, I honestly don't think KotOR2 was their fault, but that's my opinion. *hugs his baldur's gate*

[Hotfoot]

Digital Anvil - No more Freelancer either

I'll not shed any tears of Freelancer. It was an interesting concept muddled by poor game design. While I'm sure mods helped it considerably, it was hardly a super-awesome game. Though it was certainly leaps and bounds better than it's predecessor, Starlancer, a game that shall be reviled in history as being both mind-numbingly easy and joystick-shattering frustrating.

Interplay's general failure has cost us more than we can count. Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising was a fantastic game with no press because Interplay fucked it all up. They did a similar thing to Freespace 2, which was a better game than Freespace 1 by a wide margin, but didn't seem to receive even a fraction of the press.

And of course, all the RPGs published by Interplay went straight to hell when the company done did fuck itself.

Interplay published some fantastic games, but it managed to fuck it all to hell.

[Netko]

Well, let's start:

Microprose - Master of Orion 2 - then nothing
Origin - No more Wing Commander
Digital Anvil - No more Freelancer either
Black Isle - Where have all the RPGs gone?
Lucas Arts - because of all the reasons already listed.

Wow, I heartily second every single item on that list. Would like to add the various Black Isle derived Troika though.

[Netko]

Digital Anvil - No more Freelancer either

I'll not shed any tears of Freelancer. It was an interesting concept muddled by poor game design. While I'm sure mods helped it considerably, it was hardly a super-awesome game. Though it was certainly leaps and bounds better than it's predecessor, Starlancer, a game that shall be reviled in history as being both mind-numbingly easy and joystick-shattering frustrating.

It might not have had the best gameplay, but the atmosphere was excellent. I was replaying Starlancer just a while ago and it sure does have that suck-you-into-the-world thing down pat. That trumps the superior gameplay of its contemporaries like Freespace for me. Both of those games have a superb cinematic quality, not unlike Wing Commander games - which is, of course, unsurprising since they were all made by the Roberts brothers. Pretty much every intro from the WC and 'lancer series should be up there on a list of best computer game intros, and for that alone they deserve to still be making new games.

[Hotfoot]

Freespace sucked me in quite handily, thank you. I think you have to be dead to not get drawn in by the opening cinematic to Freespace 1.

Freelancer, meanwhile, kept pulling me out with the game mechanics. However good a story is, if the game mechanics are so unrealistic to shatter the fourth wall, it's hardly a very good story. The total disparity of power between the different nations is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

The shining point to Freelancer, in my mind, Juni's ass. Not that I didn't enjoy the game, mind you I just enjoyed games like Freespace and Independence War more than the Space Sim Diablo that was Freelancer.

And Starlancer..ugh. I'll take Tachyon: The Fringe over that any day. Granted, I can't complain too much, since I only paid like $2 US for it, and it was well worth the price for a mindless space shooter with a fucking impossible final mission that would have been fun if not for retarded scripting bullshit, but seriously, there is no challenge in Starlancer except for the retarded scripting bullshit. The fights aren't challenging, and you'll have to forgive me if I find it a little difficult to get sucked into a story which is basically "Oh shit we're getting overrun by the Super Russians!" when I can annihilate entire squadrons in a single pass with my mass produced fighter.

[MKSheppard]

Next to Ultima, Wing Commander was the OTHER Origin Game I long grew up with.

Were you annoyed in Wing Commander 3 that the art design was TOTALLY different than the last two games especially for confederation fighters? In Wing Commander 1, the Rapier was a shithot fighter, 10 years later in Wing Commander 2, it was a tired broken down light/medium fighter soon to be retired.

You didn't have that link in Wing 3; despite it taking a couple years after Wing 2; where's my broadsword

[Thanas]

Freelancer, meanwhile, kept pulling me out with the game mechanics. However good a story is, if the game mechanics are so unrealistic to shatter the fourth wall, it's hardly a very good story. The total disparity of power between the different nations is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

Well, Freelancerr was released half finished after all. MS brought someone in whose job waqs basically to stop any development and get as early a release as possible. Heck, even the story was not even really finished.

The shining point to Freelancer, in my mind, Juni's ass. Not that I didn't enjoy the game, mind you I just enjoyed games like Freespace and Independence War more than the Space Sim Diablo that was Freelancer.

Aah Juni - finally a female who does not have to rely on clichee Nr. 1 and ridiculous outfits.


In fact, I think I'll play another run of Freelancer right now.

[Praxis]

Sonic the Hedgehog

Ever since they decided to put him in the human world and change the villain's name from "Robotnik" to "Eggman" and introduce five bazillion side characters, Sonic Team has done nothing but make shoddy games. Really sad, too

[Brain_Caster]

Black Isle - Where have all the RPGs gone?

Their name isn't quite as good in the industry as it should be, anymore, after clusterfucks like Knights of the Old Republic 2 and NWN2. Granted, I honestly don't think KotOR2 was their fault, but that's my opinion. *hugs his baldur's gate*

Did you actually play NWN2? Because I honestly wonder how you can think of it as a "clusterfuck" and be so enamored with Baldur's Gate at the same time. When I bought it, I had been expecting something equally soulless as the first NWN - I mostly bought it because of all the fan modules. I was positively suprised.

Admittedly, NWN2 isn't as good as BG2 (what is?), but it's at least the equal of BG1. Certainly no clusterfuck.


Back to the topic: Why the hell hasn't anybody mentioned Looking Glass Studios yet?! Blasphemy! Ultima Underworlds! System Shock! The Thief series! How could you forget them, you vile heretics? ( )

[Stark]

He's talking about industry rep, not game quality.

I'd say probably Microprose, but not because of silly nonsense like MoO. Instead, because of all the cool-ass, interesting, flexible, fun, and different games they made: most of my favourite games were Microprose, Origin and Sierra, but adventures died and Freespace rules spacefighters, so I'm sad more about the lack of shit like Darklands, and XCOM (I mean proper innovative coolness, not 'lol replicate a 10yo game and get it wrong), and those strategy games, etc.

MoO3 sucked, but call me crazy, MoO2 was hopelessly easy, massively unbalanced, had terrible AI, and went fom MoO1's interesting 'spending' economy to a retarded Civ-style bullshit economy. It was fun, but it was a step in the wrong direction. MoO isn't dead anyway, since GalCiv2 is just MoO2 but good and less unbalanced/sploitable/broken.

[MKSheppard]

MoO3 sucked, but call me crazy, MoO2 was hopelessly easy, massively unbalanced, had terrible AI, and went fom MoO1's interesting 'spending' economy to a retarded Civ-style bullshit economy. It was fun, but it was a step in the wrong direction.

You mean it was now possible to win it, rather than have the AI show up with 391 Ships when you were fighting to put together 32 ships?